


Sorceress In Progress

by girlskylark



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Auxia needs LOVE, Ezor is here to help, F/F, Friendship/Love, Magic University - Freeform, Swearing, Urban Fantasy, Urban Sorcery, accidental hand-holding, alcohol use, but in a modern setting, reusing magic from the Curious Creatures fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11706759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlskylark/pseuds/girlskylark
Summary: Acxa comes from a family where sorcery is taboo, and university is the first place she'll be able to tailor her magick without the scrutiny of her parents. However, this means she's far behind, and it's obvious due to the fact that she hasn't gone through the marking ritual, and shows no evidence of elemental magick—and Ezor is here to help change that.Overwhelmed by Ezor's affections and her willingness to help, Acxa finds herself overcoming everything that held her back from feeling anything at all. For once, she feels her heart beat in rhythm with the people around her.





	1. the girl with the pink hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elsaara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaara/gifts).



> @ Elsa for screeching about there being a severe lack of Auxor fics BECAUSE THEY WERE LITERALLY JUST REVEALED THIS MORNING.
> 
> She even drew art for my human Ezor! [Check it out here](https://elsaara.tumblr.com/post/163845922313/its-girlskylark-version-of-the-love-of-my-life) :D

Acxa wasn’t what one might call “regretful” of leaving behind her home in Kuron. Half of the time, she didn’t have time to entertain such insignificant thoughts, but she tried to rationalize this, and coral those fickle thoughts into a single corner of her brain in hopes of excusing the way her chest seized up at her first sight of Ezor. 

At the time, well, they weren’t on a first-name basis, or _any_ basis at all aside from peers. She hadn’t intended to look up at that time, but the charm of someone’s light laughter caused her attention to swivel up from where she’d been filling out registration paper after paper. 

Ezor wasn’t hard to spot—not by a long shot—and perhaps it had something to do with her electric pink hair gradating to blue. Sure, wild hair colors weren’t exactly _unheard of_ , especially in _this_ university, but Acxa never felt so inclined to like it as much as she did then. But the second her attention diverted to the girl across the room, looking up into the face of someone who must have been her father, Acxa’s well-trained mind brought her eyes back down to the task at hand.

“Welcome to Daibazaal Academy, Miss Acxa,” the woman at the counter said, sliding a badge across the counter, accompanied by packets upon packets of information. _All of which would be clogging the trash cans after today_ , she thought as she picked them up. 

“Thank you,” she hummed, already turning away and swinging her satchel forward to stuff her student ID badge and paperwork into it. As she did, she searched for that girl with the pink hair, but she was already gone.

 _Probably for the better_ , she thought, considering the consequences of developing more inconveniences than she already had.

She was fully aware that Daibazaal’s campus wasn’t exactly _small_ , and so a map would have helped out significantly. Despite all that, she at last glided into the parking structure beneath the apartment complex owned by the university—only… _thirty minutes later than usual_. Five wrong turns and a bold fuck-you out the window did wonders to delay a person. There were students and parents riddling the parking lot, and she groaned at every one who thought it was a good fucking idea to walk directly in front of her car with crate-loads of clothes.

At last, she wrenched open her car door and stepped out into the chill of the underground parking garage. Just based on the weather reports, outside this comfort zone would be muggy— _ridiculously so_. Kuron didn’t exactly _prepare her_ for the unreasonable heat, and so she was stuck with the only decent shorts she owned and really hoped today would be the _only_ day for this hellish affliction. She was really only prepared for one day of this, and months of air-conditioning.

The trunk on her car was jammed, so everything was stacked into the back seat where she hefted a duffle bag over her shoulders, another in her hand, and snapped her fingers to lug out her longboard. She swept it under her arm, and staggered to the side as she kicked the door to her car shut and lumbered towards the elevator. Thank _God_ for elevators. 

She stood stoic, silent, and full of impatience for the families in that elevator with her. She imagined many of them were from around the Daibazaal area, but whether they were from this _region_ of Daibazaal would be up for interpretation. She could see them through the cloudy surface of the elevator doors, and listen to them make heartfelt conversations like, “Oh, I’ll miss you so much!” “We’ll miss having you at home!” “You’ll love it here, I promise.” Acxa rolled her eyes and huffed a strand of hair out of her face. 

The elevator shot up at some impossible speed that pushed into the bottoms of Acxa’s feet. Within a few seconds, her floor came up, and she picked up her duffle and walked out, searching down the hall for her apartment number. She followed the numbers counting down, listening to the family’s voice fade as the doors shut behind her. Doors were open all along the way, and she peered in to look into the lives of people living near her.

Every last one of them were girls, girls, and more girls. Acxa figured that had a little something to do with the academy being an all-girls private school. It wasn’t exactly a _miracle_ Acxa was accepted into a prestigious all-girls academy—the real miracle was the fact that her full-ride included everything, even any housing that happened to be owned by the campus. And though this university apartment was on the far reaches of the campus itself, it still counted. She figured living here would subtract from the amount of socializing she would have to do—

— _Wait_.

The door just before her apartment was wide open, and she heard the sound of a couple laughing, and Acxa wouldn’t have been intrigued had she not glimpsed in through the open door, leaning over to watch as the guy laughed, “Wait—No, those are _my_ clothes—”

“You wear my shirts all the time—what’s it matter?” she said, smirking as she seemed to look directly at Acxa. She gasped a little and ducked away before realizing that she hadn’t been noticed at all. The girl’s eyes were a cloudy blue, like the fog.

“Yes, but we have to maintain _some_ sort of order. If it were up to you, our apartment would be anarchy,” he commented, and Acxa caught a glimpse of some white-haired man cutting across the apartment with a tub of clothes.

He stopped, and looked to the door where she was _actually_ caught staring. She yelped and stammered out, “S-Sorry! I was just—” _Great, now your neighbors will think you’re nosey_ , she grumbled internally as the guy set down the tub and walked towards the door.

“Who is it, Lotor?” the girl asked.

The boyfriend—Lotor—pulled the door open further, and Acxa debated whether or not she should make her escape now before she had to deal with the consequences of peeping. “You look like you have your hands full,” Lotor commented, smirking at the fact that Acxa was _literally_ weighed down by several bags full of all the things she could take with her in the back of her car.

She realized then that he had been studying her exposed arms—the arms that weren’t speckled and patterned like his own and the girl’s.

She was sure she was bright red as she stuttered out, “Well—um, I think I live just next door to you guys. I was just heading over there.”

Lotor broke his gaze away from Acxa’s arms to look behind him and say to the girl now standing, “It’s our new neighbor. This is Narti, and I’m her boyfriend, Lotor.”

Acxa immediately dropped her longboard to shake his hand, and must have startled him until it merely hovered at her side as she said, “Acxa. You can call me Acxa.”

Narti reached for Lotor’s hand, and he guided her in front of him after shaking Acxa’s hand. Narti was a skinny little thing, and she was surprised to find Narti nearly two inches taller than herself. Her hair was buzzed short and seemed to be pitch black, and cropped into a military style with a bit of a quiff. “Nice to meet you,” she said, reaching a hand out to Acxa.

Acxa took it, and reveled in its nimble, boney structure. _Air, perhaps?_ she considered, and gave Narti a better look. _No, definitely water._

“I should—probably leave you two to it,” she said, smiling over at Lotor before dropping Narti’s hand. “I have some unpacking to do myself.”

“Well, we hope to see you around,” Lotor said, and Acxa grinned at the way Narti bumped her elbow into his side with a laugh. She retreated back into the apartment, and Acxa waved to them before catching her longboard again and heading to the next door over.

She was put off by the fact that her door was also wide open, and with her keys now an unnecessary item for the time being, she knocked hesitantly on the door and called out, “Hello?”

When there wasn’t an immediate response, she glimpsed at the door number and though, _Yes, this is definitely it_ —

There came a yelp from the side, and out flew… the very same girl from the registration lobby. Pink hair and all. 

They stood on opposite sides of the room, simply staring at each other. The girl had such a wide, all-encompassing smile that caused Acxa to break a little into a grin. “Um… we must be flatmates…?” she said uncertainly, taking a step into the apartment as the girl yelped, bright eyes glowing.

“Oh! Right! Goodness, I forgot to introduce myself. Ezor—my name is Ezor. You must be Acxa! I tried to find you online but you, like, don’t exist on social media and so I was worried that you were a cryptid or _dead—_ ”

Acxa was overwhelmed by the fact that they were standing directly before one another, and this beautiful, dark-skinned girl was talking her ear off like she _knew_ all Acxa wanted to hear was her voice bombarding her with the fact that she came from—

“Wait—you’re from _Thayserix?_ ” Acxa blurted out, and hesitated as she realized a man was coming out from one of the bedrooms—as tall as the doorframe and as broad as it, too. She stammered for a moment, attention divided until Ezor stepped back and looked to the guest.

“This is my dad! He came with for the day and—”

“That’s got to be a day-long flight,” Acxa commented, looking between them as Ezor suddenly dissolved into a groan that sent her shoulders slumping, and her father laughing.

“It _was_! I’m so glad it’s over. I can barely stand to sit still through a two-hour movie, let alone a twenty-hour flight,” she cried out.

Her father stepped forward and gestured to the fact that Acxa was still loaded down by bags. “Would you like me to help with those? Ezor insisted you get the room with the best view so I don’t think you have to worry about getting second-pick.”

Acxa looked down at her duffle and, after considering it for a moment, handed it over. “You didn’t have to do that—”

“Well, I figured I’d be out a lot and if you happened to be the cryptid I thought you were, I figured you might like to have the better room if I’m not around enough to enjoy it,” Ezor said as the two of them followed her father to the room across the apartment. Acxa flushed under the attention, her brain blaring a siren that said, _THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE_. What were the chances that she’d notice Ezor before ever realizing that they were flatmates?

The room was already furnished, lacking bedding and decorations that Acxa would likely buy that night after orientation. Ezor’s father dropped the duffle onto the bed and asked if she needed help bringing the rest of her things up. “Oh—no, no. This is it for me,” she hummed, still studying the room in its bare entirity, until her gaze fell on Ezor.

“Really? Where are you from?” she asked.

“Uh, Kuron, actually. Not exactly a twenty-hour flight, but ten is still a long drive,” Acxa replied, leaning her board up against the wall, and lifting her other duffle over her head. 

“Isn’t it cold there?” Ezor asked, eyes wide. “I can barely stand anything below sixty.”

“Yeah, that’s Kuron,” she said, grinning as she looked to Ezor’s intimidating father, who seemed to realize that the room wasn’t exactly meant for a party.

They two of them left Acxa to her privacy, and she listened to the muffled, incomprehensible sound of father and daughter talking across the apartment. She ran her hands through her hair with a sigh before kneading her fingers into her sore shoulder from where the bag dug into the muscle. Regardless, a smile found its way onto her face as she reconsidered the chances of having that beautiful girl from the lobby as her flatmate. 

In this reality, she really shouldn’t have gotten so lucky, but… if she was able to score twice—one with the full-ride, and the other for having Ezor as a flatmate—chances were that she could only go up from here.

  


  


It didn’t take long for Acxa to unload her severe lack of “things”, and Ezor seemed surprised as she skidded into the room and found Acxa lying back on her empty bed, scrolling through her phone. She sat up expectantly as Ezor scanned the premises, looking thrown off and seriously disoriented. 

“What is it?” Acxa asked.

“It’s just—your life. It’s nonexistent—where is everything? We need to change this _ASAP!_ ” she exclaimed. “What happened to those bags of your’s?”

“There’s a thing called a _closet_ ,” she laughed, standing up and pulling aside the mirrored door to gesture to everything in there. Her backpack was hung up on a hook, her clothes were on their respectable hangers, and her shoes were lined up on the floor. The picture of perfection.

“ _Oh_. Okay. I don’t feel so bad anymore,” Ezor said, crossing her arms as she looked Acxa up and down. She suddenly felt bare without her usual jeans and leggings, and shifted anxiously on her feet. “I… was actually wondering if you wanted to go around and greet the neighbors with me! And then afterwards I have some shopping to do.”

“Sounds good to me. I’m afraid we probably don’t have any silverware or dishes in our kitchen,” she confessed, and Ezor blinked, abruptly faced by the fact that they couldn’t cook until they stocked up their entire kitchen with the supplies for it.

“ _Shit_. Well—let’s delay meeting the neighbors. I bet not all of them are here anyways. C’mon—”

It was the first time Acxa felt Ezor’s hand in her own, and she thought she might die right there and then. How many hands had she held in her life time? Maybe two, if you didn’t count shaking hands with Lotor and Narti, or anyone else for that matter. So she was more or less deprived of the attention Ezor gave her from day one, and since then, Acxa didn’t feel burdened by it as she had in Kuron. She wasn’t exactly one to seek out a conversation, but Ezor was someone she didn’t mind listening to as she grabbed her wallet and keys, and hurried out her bedroom door with Ezor in the lead.

Ezor’s father left unceremoniously, and Acxa completely missed him go. She asked as they locked up the front door, and Ezor said, “Oh—he had to leave since he’s traveling for a week around Daibazaal before heading home. He wanted to make it to the mountains by tonight.”

“Oh—that’s cool, I suppose. Why didn’t you go with him? Classes don’t start for a week.”

“And miss everything going on on campus? No way!” she laughed, hooking her arm through Acxa’s and bumping their hips together. “As if I’d abandon _you_! We have a lot of catching up to do since I couldn’t even find you _online_. Come on! Where’s the fun in that.”

“I’m… not really into social media,” she confessed with a grimace. _A lot of good that does me_ , she thought, and shook her head as she sighed.

“Well… then… we should change that! This week we’ll need to have a _photoshoot_ —I met a girl on the way over here who’s into photography, and—”

“I don’t have much to wear. Again—Kuron and all that,” she insisted, and ignored the fact that _photoshoot_ meant that she’d be the center of attention _yet again_. She didn’t mind Ezor’s attention, but cameras never “did her justice”, as some people might say. 

“Bullshit! You don’t have _any_ clothes? Well, what the hell are you wearing right now?”

“This is my only pair of descent shorts! The rest are from when I used to play volleyball, like, _three years ago_!” she exclaimed, flinching at the thought of wearing Spandex in front of Ezor around the apartment. She brought them in fear of dying in the Daibazaal heat, but… they could stay at the bottom of her closet where they belonged.

Waiting in the elevator gave Acxa time to study the markings on Ezor’s hand that were easy to dismiss. She studied sorcery markings more than anything else in regards to her magick studies—mostly because her parents never allowed her to go through the ritual. She adored the elemental rings circling Ezor’s fingers, and fading around the backs of her hands like the tiny, minuscule prints of tree rings.

The elevator opened up, but Acxa was held back by Ezor, who had her feet pinned to the ground, jaw dropping further by the second. “You mean. To tell me. That you don’t have any clothes.”

“I’m literally wearing clothes _right now_ ,” she complained, grimacing as she realized that a family was standing outside of the elevator, waiting for them to hurry the fuck up.

Acxa practically dragged Ezor out by the hand that was now ensnared between Ezor’s. _Holding hands should_ not _be this aggressive_ , Acxa thought, horrified by the fact that her hands were sweating buckets, and they were outside now where the air conditioning gave way to the muggy breeze drifting through the parking garage.

“We need to get you clothes. We can’t have you running around naked,” Ezor said.

Acxa’s mouth fell open, but Ezor was already on a mission. “We need to find the buses that go to the city—” It took an entire minute before Acxa was able to talk again, and point out the fact that they just passed by her car. “How can you own a _car_ and not _clothes?_ ”

“I have—”

“Come on! Get in the damn car—”

“I’m _working on it—_ ”

“You need to—”

“—Let _go_ of my hand, would help!” Acxa said, now smilingly madly as Ezor realized that she was holding onto Acxa’s hand so tightly that she hadn’t realized Acxa’s fingers were limp in her grasp. 

Ezor leapt away, brushing her hands off and stationing them on her hips. She stuck her nose in the air, and Acxa startled the both of them by bursting out laughing. When she finally recovered, Ezor came at her and twisted her around by the shoulders, pushing her towards the driver’s do. “We gotta go! This is of the utmost importance!”

“Okay—okay,” Acxa laughed, still giggling as Ezor yanked open the passenger door and dropped in. She snorted and drummed her hands on the dash with a laugh. 

“Let’s get this baby rollin’!”

They pulled out of the parking lot, and Acxa felt this bizarre, floating feeling settle in her chest that reminded her of when she first attempted telekinesis as a kid. It hadn’t turned out as expected, and her parents were never one for sorcery, by any means. She awoke her magick sooner than most of the kids in her classes, and it terrified her mother to no end. Sorcery wasn’t exactly something that ran in the family, and so no one exactly expected Acxa of becoming a sorceress, or even pursuing it as a possible occupation.

It was a common topic, especially at orientation events, so she wasn’t exactly surprised with Ezor leaned on the center console and said, eyebrows wiggling, “So… how’d you become a sorceress? What was your first trick?”

They pulled up to a set of stoplights as Acxa hummed and confessed, “Well… I was the first person in my school to successfully _use_ sorcery. I actually… levitated myself instead of the rock I was trying levitate. I ended up not being able to stop and fell into a tree, and broke my arm.”

“ _Seriously?_ That’s probably the craziest story I’ve heard yet! Well, aside from the time my friend back at home accidentally took out all the lights in their house and they had to rewire the entire building.”

“That sounds like an expensive way to find your powers.”

“Nothing compared to breaking your arm, I’m sure,” she said. “I found my powers when I turned my brother invisible and we couldn’t see him for an entire week before a counselor helped me uncloak him.”

“Uncloak?”

“Yeah. It’s like… the invisible energy people exude. Everyone has a unique magical footprint, and it’s easier to manipulate some elements than others but… mostly I’m _really_ good at hiding myself. I’m still working on it.”

“That’s incredible,” Acxa said, glancing over at where Ezor was leant on the armrest, studying the interior of the car. “You must have water, right?”

“Yeah. Connection to spirits, yada-yada-yada—but mostly I’m interested in chemistry. Manipulating elements is my specialty. What about you? Air?” She watched Ezor lean forward to squint at her hands, and tried her best to ignore the silent shock of not finding anything there.

“Fire, actually,” she said, and sighed. “I think. I mean, that’s what I put on all of my applications.”

“How would you…?”

“It’s just the feeling I get from my magick,” she confessed. “My… parents are against sorcery and never let me get my markings.”

“I’m—I’m so sorry. Do you think… you’ll get them now? Now that you’re in uni?” Ezor asked, and Acxa turned to glance at her side mirror to avoid the pity she knew she’d find on Ezor’s face. Full sorcerers without markings were unheard of, especially in university. The rituals tended to open the floodgates to incredible elemental powers. So… Acxa just continued on without the elemental half of her sorcery. 

“I think I’ll have to. I have an elemental studio course that requires the basics,” she confessed. “I never had a mentor in grade school though, so I don’t have anyone to perform the ritual until I meet my professors.”

“You should ask one of the counselors to help you,” Ezor said. “ _Man_. That’s _insane_. I’ve never met anyone who uses magick and doesn’t have their elemental markings.”

Acxa pulled off the freeway, following the course of her GPS with an internal sigh of regret. But that was yet another tedious thing to consider, and so she shoved it into the corner of her mind where she would try to contain her everything—her everything in regards to her building appreciation for Ezor’s unfounded attention.

  


  


Acxa was the sort of person to stand in thrift store isles, frozen in time by bomber jackets and skinny jeans. Back in Kuron, that was her go-to style—something to cover up her arms, fingerless gloves to hide her lack of markings from her magick-using peers. She never thought to feel self-conscious about it until she met Ezor, and that girl’s seemingly genuine concern for whatever adolescence Acxa had.

“So… what’s Kuron like?” she asked from the other side of a department store clothing rack. Acxa shopped by the price tag, and squinted at the numbers on each pair of shorts she pulled off the hangers. 

“Hm?” she said.

“Kuron?”

“Oh! Oh, Kuron’s fine. You know—mountains… kinda chilly in the winter… I don’t mind the summers though. I’m probably going to miss snowboarding, though.”

“I noticed you have a longboard…?”

“Yeah, a bit of a supplement, but the chances of me being hit by a car longboarding versus snowboarding are higher this way,” she said, and Ezor snorted. She hid her smile by ducking down to study the lower shelves of stacked shirts. 

A bit of a flash beside her sent her nearly tipping onto the ground, realizing that Ezor was beside her in a second, dumping piles of clothes into her arms. “Try these on. I’m gonna keep looking around. We’re about the same size, right? I’d say so.”

“Uh… Sure?” she said dumbly, and the second she was behind the closed doors of the dressing room, she smacked her forehead over every weird thing she said, every stutter, and every long pause before her answers. Why couldn’t she socialize like a normal human being? Like Ezor?

She couldn’t imagine Ezor around people that emulated the same energy as herself. She could _feel_ the buzz of something powerful beneath the surface of Ezor’s bubbly attitude, and it felt a lot like the connection of magick source-to-magick source. Acxa had only connected with her peers’ magick sources a handful of times before, if even that. There really wasn’t any need for it in grade school, when the use of magick was supervised.

She felt it under the touch of Ezor’s hand pulling her by the wrist to look before the mirror. She stared at the two of them side-by-side, and how her shoulders were bunched up, stance hardly relaxed like Ezor’s was. The girl had her incredibly long hair tied up at the top of her head where it swung and tipped over her shoulder with a shake of her head.

“Nope, no, that isn’t you. That’s not your style,” she said.

“What do you mean? It looks… pretty good.” Acxa looked down at herself and thought, _Nope. No. Definitely not me_.

“I see you in dark colors and flannels. Let’s try… this next, and this.” Ezor swept up a striped, navy crop top and high waisted shorts that Acxa grudgingly accepted, thinking, _There’s no way I’m going to feel comfortable in any of this. I haven’t sat under the sun in_ years _, let alone gone anywhere without a sweatshirt_.

She ended up buying everything Ezor tallied up as “Hell yes!” which never failed to make Acxa fluster over her own appearance. It was either that, or die of heatstroke, which wasn’t… exactly an honorable death in Acxa’s books. She figured she’d go down swinging if she had the chance, not by succumbing to this ungodly heat.

They ended up spending nearly an hour holding up pots and pans from across the kitchen section to see what looked best, and what would be tossed into the cart. Acxa circled around to find Ezor, who happened to be hiding by the wall featuring an assortment of butcher knives they really didn’t need. 

“But _Acxa_ …!”

“No—does it _look_ like we own a butchery? What would we even use this for anyways?” she demanded, swinging up the knife to inspect it, and sending Ezor into a hilariously hysterical tizzy. 

“I don’t know! I don’t even cook, this is all new to me!” she whined, and Acxa narrowed her eyes at Ezor as she put the knife back and went to grab the startup pack hanging in a cheap plastic package. 

“ _I’ll_ take care of getting cooking utensils then,” she declared, and hurriedly inspected the measuring cups in fear of one of the employees coming over and asking if they needed any help—which they probably did.

Acxa was forced to face the price of bedding, and grudgingly coughed it up at the register where the total was more than any of the textbooks she’d ever have to buy that semester. Ezor clutched her heart as she payed for half of the cooking supplies, and murmured, “It was nice knowing you, Ben #1… Ben #2…”

“You’re ridiculous,” Acxa scoffed from down the line, leaning on the cart where her bags were stowed, and her bedding was taking up a large portion of the space. 

They left the store with Ezor saying, “As I sacrificed my savings to our cause, I was thinking about… the chances that maybe _I_ could do your ritual _for_ you?” 

“It takes a week, Ezor,” she deadpanned, and Ezor deflated, already having known that that would be a dilemma. “And you want to go to all the events, right? We’ve only got a week before classes start—I don’t want you lingering around a source well all week.”

“But it’d still be _exciting_ , you know? I visited all my friends back at home when they were going through their rituals,” she exclaimed, throwing her arms up. “Of course I’ll still visit you! Even if I’m not performing the ritual myself!”

Acxa was glad that they were at the car by that point, so she could steady her beating heart by pushing bags of _stuff_ into the back seat of the car. “I can’t exactly _stop you_ , I guess,” she said. “Do you think they do traditional rituals here?”

“I guess it depends on who you ask. _Why?_ Are you gonna go the traditional route and get naked for it?” Ezor shimmied her chest around from the other side of the car, and Acxa slapped a hand over her face and groaned.

“ _No_ —Well—I’m just _wondering_ if they even _do that here_. They do it in Kuron, usually, but everyone wears ritual robes.”

“Same in Thayserix,” she said. “We don’t do the paint though. That’s kind of old school.”

“I’d argue it’s the best part of the ritual—that way you get to reveal your markings as you scrub off the paint afterwards,” Acxa said, and sighed as she recalled all the history of rituals she read in books at the libraries. She’d love to have a fully traditional marking ritual, but the chances of that were not only impossible, but _expensive_.

It wasn’t like she’d have to pay for her ritual at Daibazaal Academy, but there were some mentors who charged students who weren’t already their apprentices. 

Ezor suddenly snapped her fingers in front of Acxa’s face. They were sitting in the front seats now, waiting for her to turn on the vehicle. Ezor had the radio on the second they pulled out of the parking lot, and started back towards the freeway. “But anyways. Whatever your element is, I bet it’s gonna be cool, and your magick will make a lot more sense afterwards. At least, that was the case for me.”

“Thanks, Ezor,” she said, voice quiet beyond the music, and the fact that she wasn’t as up to par as she thought she was. 

Acxa always had extraordinary magick regardless of the fact that she couldn’t use many elemental effects. She touched on several of them in an attempt to bypass the ritual, but nothing came of it as far as she could tell. Her knowledge of sorcery was what made her such an excellent candidate for the scholarship that would hold her up through university. She thought about it enough to forget the fact that elemental magick was important at all.

At least, until Lotor noticed her obvious lack of markings. She wondered if Narti could tell just by touching her hand that she wasn’t a fully-realized sorceress yet.

They couldn’t carry everything in without a little extra help, so Acxa tied the bags shut and swept them up off the ground behind them. Ezor marveled at the fluid motion, and how it hardly seemed to exhaust a single drop of Acxa’s magick. In the elevator, she let them sit on the ground as Ezor asked, “So… you mentioned that you got a full ride here. How’d you manage that?”

“Damn good grades and one perfect essay. And a few recommendation letters,” she said, smirking as she thought about the essay and how she completely pulled it out of her ass the night before the due date. “What about you?”

“Me? Oh, I don’t have a full ride. I just got a few scholarships is all,” she confessed, shaking her head. “Just… things my previous school offered, I guess.”

Her eyebrows puckered together, and Acxa turned away to avoid letting her expression fall anywhere under the line of “pity”. She hated pity, and assumed everyone else did, too. “Well, it’s better than nothing, I guess,” she said instead as the doors to the elevator opened, and they swept up the bags once more.

Doors were still open, and they were stopped by girls gathering outside of each others’ doors. Acxa was suddenly aware of the fact that her arms were bare, and so she gathered up a few of the bags to distract the girls from them. It was a miracle that Ezor picked up on the fact that her lack of marks were more or less taboo now, and somehow she drifted through the conversations in a breeze of perfection. Acxa simply stood on the sidelines marveling at Ezor, and observing everyone else as they seemed to pick up on the buzz hovering beneath the surface of every word. 

It was remarkable. 

Acxa felt the distinct sensation of pride at having such a likable flatmate, but that of course didn’t stop her from becoming irritated the longer each conversation droned on. She was relieved when they finally got to their door, and she was able to dump the bags out on the counter, and have a moment to herself…

Ezor came back from her room posing and displaying a bottle in her hands. “What say you to a bit of alcohol, huh?” she asked, blinking her glittering eyes at Acxa from across the kitchen.

“We have to unpack the cups first,” she said.

Ezor deflated and muttered, “Stick in the mud.”

“What? Are you suggesting we chug it from the bottle like animals?”

“That’s exactly what I’m—” she stopped at the sound of a knock on the door, and yelped in excitement. “Yay! Visitors!”

Ezor twirled, and disappeared in a fissure of flickering spots. Acxa nearly dropped whatever package she was holding, and rationalized that she _really_ should have seen that coming. The amount of times Ezor reappeared next to her were too much to ignore, considering in that same instance, Ezor reappeared at the door, swinging it open with a giddy, “Hello! Welcome to our humble abode!”

“I’m… guessing this is where Acxa lives. You must be her flatmate,” a girl’s voice sounded. She tried not to feel alarmed by the fact that people actually _knew her now_ , so she pushed that aside to step out into the hall where Ezor was greeting Narti and Lotor.

“Ezor—it’s nice to meet you.”

“Narti, and this is my boyfriend Lotor,” she said, and was instantly ushered in by Ezor, who exclaimed, “Perfect! We were just about to break open a bottle of wine if you two want to join us!”

“We actually brought some ourselves,” Lotor confessed with a laugh, holding it up out of the tote Narti held. He winked at Acxa as they passed, saying, “You can never be too careful.”

“Apparently,” she hummed, and went over to shut the door they left open.

Ezor rifled through the bags in search of glasses when Narti commented, “Sounds like you two went shopping.”

“Oh— _yeah_ … we’re both from different countries and had to travel a ways. Not much room for things you can buy here, you know?” she explained. 

Acxa leaned on the counter as she watched Lotor pull back one of the counter stools for Narti. She pushed herself up onto it, and Acxa felt the definite sensation of fondness for the blind girl now sitting across from her, and tipping her chin up at the direction of where she heard Ezor and Lotor count to three before they both yanked up the cork on their bottles of wine. “Narti should decide which we dig into first,” she insisted, and leant over the plastic bags to let Narti get a whiff of each bottle.

It was as if they existed in a bubble in which the four of them connected on a level that arrived in the same plain of existence as Ezor’s communal buzz. It brought back the light feeling in Acxa’s chest she touched on earlier that day, but never before. She hoped they tolerated her standoffish attitude longer than just this one night, and refused to dwell on the fact that Narti mentioned _her name_ the moment Ezor opened the door.

“So Lotor—you’re, like, the only person with a significant amount of testosterone in this entire building. Tell me, how does that make you feel?” Ezor asked, and held the bottle out to him as if it was a microphone before pouring it into his glass.

“I feel blessed,” he responded, and both Narti and Acxa snorted at it. 

“You’d think more guys would live here just for the purpose of leeching on the Academy’s superior number of females,” Acxa commented as she took a sip of her wine.

“Glad that isn’t the case, but you’re all right, Lotor. You’re all right,” Ezor said, raising her glass and clinking it on Acxa’s.

“What made you want to go to a university for women?” Lotor asked. “And please don’t say it’s because of the excellent magick program. I get too much of that.”

“I’m too gay to deal with straight, cis men,” she confessed, “no offense.”

Lotor laughed as Narti nearly choked on her drink giggling. “He fits only one of those bills, and that would be the ‘cis’ part,” she said. “And anyways, I came here because they have an excellent biological-magick application course.”

“That’s why I’m here as well,” Acxa confessed. “I’ve always been interested in medical sciences.”

“Exactly. An old professor of mine has been working on a study with something I’ve been doing my entire life. For the past year I’ve been helping out, since I can’t… _technically_ participate in it.”

“And what’s that?” 

“I’ll show you, if…?” she said, reaching for Lotor. He hummed his agreement, and guided her hand to the back of his head where her fingers combed through his hair and pressed to the upper end of his neck.

Acxa supposed going to an academy strictly for magick would be bizarre, but she hadn’t expected to experience the _weird_ side of it until later on. But that day a completely blind girl saw her through the eyes of her boyfriend, and both Ezor and Acxa could see a slight film wash over the glassy part of Lotor’s eyes as he blinked quickly and readjusted to the change. A soft, “Whoa,” came out of Ezor’s mouth before she asked, “So… can you see us right now?”

“Yes,” Narti beamed, “you two are very beautiful. Ezor, you have _very_ pink hair. I love it.”

Ezor preened and tugged her ponytail over her shoulder, batting her hand at Narti. “Oh, stop it, you,” she giggled.

“We both share Lotor’s vision,” she explained, “but he can’t look at me when we’re in this state. I’ve done it twice before, and both times I’ve only shown up to myself as this… _weird_ blurry figure before a migraine sets in. So we just stick to using it for the purpose of putting a face to the name.”

“What does it feel like for you?” Acxa asked Lotor.

“Like my eyes are heavy,” he confessed with a smirk, and instantly Narti pulled her hand off his head to flick him on the ear. “ _Ouch_! It’s true though!”

“So you two must be a few years ahead of us,” she said, glancing at Ezor, who nodded.

“I’m already a graduate, but I help out at Daibazaal with professors who need the extra help. Narti and I actually _met_ in the lab where the study is happening,” Lotor explained, and instantly Ezor gasped, and nearly spilled her drink as she reached for him.

“Wait—! So you work for the university?”

Alarmed, Lotor raised an eyebrow and said, “Yes—”

“So you know people who are able to do a marking ritual?” The second she blurted it out, Acxa bristled, ducking her head and hiding her hands behind the bags of supplies still on the counter. She could feel Lotor look at her then, already having noticed her bare hands. _Of all the places I could have gone, I picked a school in the desert because it was free_ , she whined internally, wishing she had something to cover up with.

“I… assume this has something to do with the fact that you don’t have any markings, Acxa,” Narti commented, and softly added, “I noticed when I saw you through Lotor’s eyes.”

“Yes, it _might_ have something to do with that,” she confessed. “I’d like to take care of it this week, but I have no clue who to ask, or what source wells are available for ritual use—”

“I can take care of it,” Lotor interrupted, and met Acxa’s eyes as she raised them up, startled by his acceptance. “I’ve done marking rituals before. I can get access to one of the wells, if you’d like.”

“Really?” Ezor burst, a thrilled laugh exploding through her as she lunged for Acxa. She was frozen in place, stunned by the idea that her markings were only that much closer to showing themselves. Ezor shook her out of it with the realization that she was wrapped up in a hug, and the smiles of the three people she hoped to one day consider her friends.


	2. cheers to a new life

“I’ve done a lot of research on marking rituals… since I was never able to go through it myself,” Acxa started, scowling in remembrance of the last _eighteen years of her life_ gone without elemental magic. She shook her head. “Anyways, I know how most of them go. What rituals are you most comfortable with?”

“I suppose that all depends on what _you’re_ most comfortable with,” Lotor said. That same night they became acquainted with one another, they stood in the living room discussing the ritual, and going through Acxa’s _ridiculous_ amount of sorcery books. They were the only things that filled the shelving unit above her desk. “And I can’t say I’m entirely familiar with the ancient way about it, and I’d rather not _try_ and _fail_.”

“You wouldn’t fail, hun,” Narti said, smiling from the couch where Ezor sat beside her, head tipped on her shoulder as she watched Lotor flip through pages upon pages of symbols that Acxa had gone through long ago, and circled the ones that she felt applied to her—but mentors were always the ones to pick out the ritual designs. It felt… _conceited_ of her to decide for herself.

Lotor beamed from where he sat on the ground and said, “Aw, that’s so sweet—but we’re being serious right now, and seriously, all facts on the table, I am not cut out for an ancient ritual right now. Hybrids of it, I should be able to do, but rarely anyone I know of nowadays is incapable of the amount of magick ancient rituals are _used for_. Only severely talented sorcerers are likely to seek out other sorcerers who know how to perform them.”

“What do you mean?” Ezor asked. “Don’t… we _all_ sort of have the same source magick?”

“Not technically, and some have larger sources than others,” Acxa explained. “It’s basically our own invisible well that dries out, and we have to replenish it at source wells that Mother Nature exposes to us. Iconic historical sorcerers who are capable of using all four elements are likely to have larger individual magick sources.”

“Perhaps we should check the size of your source,” Lotor suggested, and glanced over at his girlfriend, who shrugged and moved to get up. “Narti’s better at seeing other peoples’ source wells than myself.”

“It’s more of a _feeling_ …” Ezor said from the couch, tossing her arm over the back of the couch. Acxa shifted her attention to where Lotor called out to Narti, reaching a hand up to touch her’s. She took him by the hand and lowered down in front of Acxa.

The thrill of sharing a source space was _exhilarating_. She never fully grasped the beauty of it until she neared her final years of grade school. She never had many opportunities to share a source with someone, and so when Narti reached out for her hands, she eagerly grabbed hold.

Narti murmured, “Take a deep breath and close your eyes.”

“Okay.”

“You haven’t done this in a while—that’s okay. I can feel it in your hands,” she hummed, and Acxa’s brow tensed as she turned her eyes down to her lap, despite the fact that her eyes were entirely closed. “It’s just us here. Relax… do you remember the words?”

“Of course I do,” she remarked, offended by the insinuation that she _didn’t_.

“Okay. You take the lead,” Narti said, and as Acxa cleared her throat and began reciting the words, Narti joined in. 

Their voices fused at the simplest roll of their tongues. Acxa could feel the weight of Narti’s magick seeping between her fingers like heavy molasses. It coated Acxa’s arms, and she felt it lift her chest up rather than weigh it down. She let her voice pull through, above the wake of Narti’s magick rising up around her, and pulling at her own internal supply.

It felt as though her brain was occupied by two rather than one. She could sense the clarity even in Narti’s opaque, murky magick. It was defined, and weighted with her magickal surety. Acxa breathed it in, and felt it coat the inside of her lungs like a film of something plastic—but it weakened. It softened around the edges and became a familiar substance as it drifted alongside her own, cloudy abyss of a source. Acxa was familiar with this sensation, and reveled in it for the moment that lasted. Her hands clasped tighter around Narti’s to assure her that she was still there. So long as they remained connected by touch, everything would be okay. Breaking the connection prematurely would make both of their sources unstable and potentially deadly.

“I’m going to search around now,” Narti said, and Acxa peaked open an eye to peer at Narti’s boyfriend as he adjusted the book on his lap. “Lotor, what are you looking for?”

“Describe the fingerprint of her magickal source to me. The more details the better, so the ritual can be more exact,” he said.

“It feels… cold—but not unpleasant. Not at first. It’s like… a late autumn frost. I can feel the moisture on my skin… sap away. Brittle.”

“Sounds like where you come from,” Ezor giggled, shuffling over from the couch to bump up next to Acxa. She leaned in, pushing their shoulders together as Narti smiled. “What else?”

“It’s… foggy. If there was a color to describe your source, it would be white—though I don’t really count _white_ as a _color_ ,” Narti muttered, and Acxa looked to where Lotor scratched it all into a pad of paper. “I can’t see all of it, but… she’s definitely around a level three…”

There were five levels of magick potency, and it depended on the strength and size of an individual’s source magick well. Twos were fairly common at Daibazaal Academy—the mass majority of the population consisted of them, but threes rivaled that. Fours were spectacular students that went on to become masters of their craft, at the top of their fields. Fives were… nonexistent in this day in age. Acxa once read that the scale used to tip beyond a five, but gradually, magick has begun its decline.

“That’s good,” Lotor said. “That explains how you were able to get into the Academy without elemental magick.”

“And also how you’re able to levitate so many objects at once for extended periods of time,” Ezor added, and at the curious look on Lotor’s face, she added, “We went shopping and had to carry em up here from the car!”

Acxa scoffed at the Lotor rolled his eyes and jotted _levitation_ down in his notebook. “That seems to be your go-to magick outlet—I can see record of it in your well,” Narti confessed. “And also… I’m not sure what to call this.”

“Abstract magick?” Lotor suggested, and Narti shrugged, shaking her head.

“It’s _emotional_ —I wouldn’t consider emotions entirely abstract, would you?” she asked, and Acxa felt a tug on that aspect of her magick. It was the most prominent push and pull she felt from Narti as she searched around Acxa’s magick, and tugged at the far corners of her mind. 

“Don’t—That’s off limits,” she managed to choke out, feeling the swell of Narti’s magick in her throat like the plastic in her lungs. 

Ezor’s gentle hum of magick touched her shoulder, and she felt it leak like tendrils of roots into her and Narti’s oasis. The calm of it mixed with Narti’s soft, “Okay. Off limits. I won’t pull on that again—but, Lotor, I’d categorize it as a repressor. Her emotional magick is well-founded.”

Acxa knew exactly what it was, and merely watched as Lotor marked it down, expression returning to its natural, stoic behavior. She became aware of how much her cheeks hurt from smiling, and wondered if the next time she looked in the mirror, she would find evidence of her happiness in the marks of soft, malleable lines on her cheeks.

Rituals weren’t simple enough to toss around like free candy. It required time, mostly, to accumulate the foundation of the ritual. The symbols that went around the subject, and in some instances, _on_ the subject. It was tailored to each sorcerer, to fit their needs, and evolve from the structured, ancient approach to the one many sorcerers used today. They stayed up into the late hours of the night, studying Acxa’s magick and designing the ritual from adopting bits and pieces across the board. 

Narti fell asleep on the couch later that night, and eventually, Lotor called it a night.

“I’ll figure out which source well we’ll use tomorrow, and we should be able to start tomorrow afternoon—if that works well for you,” he said, and Acxa nodded, eyes wide as she watched him rise to his feet.

“Thank you so much for helping,” Ezor said, bounding up to give him a side-hug.

He laughed and said, “I don’t have much going on other than this, so it’s no problem.”

Acxa picked up the empty glasses of wine and rose to her feet, feeling the sway of it in the inside of her skull. As she went to the kitchen, she watched out of the corner of her eye as Lotor attempted to rouse Narti, and ended up just carrying her out of the flat. “We’ll see you two tomorrow,” Lotor said on his way out. Ezor held the door for him, and hurried out to help him unlock his own flat.

As soon as they were gone, Acxa hastily pressed the backs of her hands to her heated cheeks to keep her smile contained. She shook her head, cleared her throat, and resisted the bubbly feeling from the alcohol as if it was something that would hinder her happiness rather than support it. It reminded her of Ezor’s contagious, gentle touches that were reminders that she wasn’t always as brittle and cold as Narti claimed her magick source was.

The door opened again, and she hurriedly got back to cleaning dishes, breaking open the seal on their new dish soap. 

“Well that went well! I wasn’t expecting Lotor to work for Daibazaal,” Ezor exclaimed, strutting into the kitchen where she found Acxa cleaning plates they used to eat the frozen pizza they just purchased that day. 

“Could you help dry the dishes?” she asked, glancing over at where Ezor seemed to jump into gear where she’d been leaning against the wall. As she sidled up beside Acxa, she bumped their hips together. “I’m just worried that it’ll take too long and I’ll end up missing the first day of all my classes,” she confessed.

“If ya do, I’ll catch you up.”

“Attendance _is_ a thing, you know.”

“I’m sure your counselor can take care of it once she knows you’re going through the marking ritual,” Ezor said with a wave of her hand, sending the towel swirling around. 

As they finished cleaning up, the clock ticked to one in the morning, and Ezor released a massive yawn, stretching her arms up and exposing the piercing on her stomach. Acxa looked to the ceiling with an equally heavy sigh. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard before opening her gaze to where Ezor was watching her from where she stood directly beside her. 

She ducked her chin back down, and said, “What is it?”

“I… was just wondering if you wanted to stay up a bit longer?” Ezor asked. “I still feel like we haven’t gotten the chance to talk about, like, _anything_. And I won’t be able to talk to you for a week and then classes will start…”

“Oh,” Acxa turned away and reconsidered the fact that she’d basically be asleep for an entire week. _But sleep sounds incredibly nice…_ “I think it’s better for us to get a good night’s rest before tomorrow.”

“Aw, _laaame_ , what about staying up late drinking and talking about the philosophical chances that life doesn’t even _exist_ and that we’re all just floating apparitions of some larger being’s mind scape?” she whined, and just hearing Ezor’s voice so close to her own was enough to convince her that sleep wasn’t that important at all.

They had one bathroom, and they shared it to brush their teeth and wash their faces. During that time, Ezor had music playing on her phone so the need for conversation was minimal until Acxa was drying her face on the towel Ezor passed her. “So… Not to be blunt or anything, but sounds like you have some experience with emotional magick.”

Acxa paused for a moment before finishing up and tossing the towel over the tub edge. “Just something I thought myself back in high school.”

“You know… high school wasn’t all that long ago,” she countered, arms crossed as she led the way out of the bathroom, arms crossed and eyelids low as she smiled smugly at Acxa. “Any particular reason why you decided to teach yourself that?”

“I have my reasons. And I’m sure you have yours when it comes to deciding when to and when not to turn invisible on your friends,” she remarked. As she talked, she distracted herself from the fact that they were entering Ezor’s room, and she stood on the carpet, lost as Ezor climbed onto her bed and waited for Acxa to join her.

Ezor’s room was far more put together than Acxa’s—which made it easier for her to understand Ezor’s reaction when she came into Acxa’s barren room. Her sheets were a light, fuzzy blue that matched the pastel tones of the tapestry on the wall. Ezor leant up against it as Acxa wandered over to the posters on the walls, and accidentally noted the gift Ezor’s father left on the desk for her. It was wrapped and tucked in with a letter signed, _To my beloved daughter_.

“Your father must be nice. He seemed nice, anyways,” Acxa said, looking back to her new flatmate.

Ezor stuffed a pillow against the wall next to her and patted the spot on the mattress. Cautiously, Acxa climbed up, and let Ezor bump their shoulders together. “He is. But then again I’m more of a papa’s girl—we do everything together. Well, _did_ everything together. I have a younger sister who will likely be doted on now that I’m gone.”

“Were you two close?”

“Not very,” she confessed. “I wish we were. I think we’ll end up calling each other a lot, though. Did you have a lot of siblings?”

Acxa shook her head, crossing her legs at the ankles. Her feet dangled off the side of the bed. “No. It was just me.”

“I’m under the impression you didn’t like your parents much.”

“I never understood the concept of familial, unconditional love. So no, I didn’t like them much,” she sighed, and glanced at Ezor briefly. It seemed as though she was waiting for Acxa to continue, so she did. “I think of it like… loyal dogs with abusive owners. Clearly we believe that dogs should be removed from such dangerous situations, but… when it comes to families, half the time it goes unnoticed because that’s ‘parenting’.”

“So you were…?”

“No—we just didn’t understand one another, and they did their best to shape me,” she explained on an exhale, the words fading with her breath that tasted like wine. She could feel the soreness from talking settling in her throat after spending so much time with Lotor and Narti.

“Well,” Ezor started, drawing Acxa’s attention to her, “based on just today, I’d say you did a pretty good job of keeping your shape.”

“Thanks—”

“Not, like, _weight-wise!_ Or physical shape because I don’t know what you looked like _before_ because you aren’t on social media… But you know what I mean, right? Because of the ‘shape’ metaphor?” she blurted out, and giggled as Acxa scoffed, rolling her eyes. 

They sat together, talking about their different versions of home that existed for the past eighteen years of their lives. As the clock ticked to two in the morning, Acxa had her head resting atop Ezor’s as she murmured that her eyes were far too heavy to keep open for another second. “You never made your bed, though,” Ezor reminded her. 

_Shit_. She really didn’t want to deal with the mess that came with tucking the sheets under the mattress.

“I should go do that then,” she said.

Ezor leant a hand on her arm then as she made to get up. Acxa looked to her, and found Ezor’s tired, sleepy eyes nearly impossible to ignore. “Or… you could just sleep here? I mean—I’ve never slept in anything other than a twin, so I can’t imagine I’ll take up much space,” she said. 

Acxa _knew_ that with the drive from her last hotel, to moving in, to going shopping, to drinking with Lotor and Narti likely helped in making poor decisions. She viewed staying the night with Ezor as a poor decision since she couldn’t imagine a girl like Ezor—confident, beautiful, and _loud_ —would comprehend the affect her attention had on Acxa. But she laid down anyways, and faced the tapestry that blurred over the line between the blue and the pink in Ezor’s hair. 

She pulled out her ponytail and let her hair fall up over her pillow. “Do you snore?” she asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Acxa confessed quietly. “You?”

“Nope. I used to share a room with my older sister, so I’d know if I did,” she said, tipping her head onto the pillow as she reached for the outlet where the decorative lights were plugged in. “You good?”

“Yeah. You can turn off the lights,” she replied, and let her heavy eyelids fall shut for the night. 

That night she listened to the cars outside lull her to sleep in time with Ezor’s quiet breaths against the pillow beside her’s. She half-hoped to wake up cloaked in Ezor’s arms—she might have dreamt it, and thought for a brief moment that it was true—but they both woke up the way they fell asleep, too exhausted to move even subconsciously. Acxa was out of bed as soon as sunlight started streaming through the bedroom curtains, and let the tender blue light guide her to the door where she’d stand there, watching the rise and fall of Ezor’s chest before leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short bit because of writer's block :) Since I'm splitting up the second part, the third part will likely be longer and include the "epilogue".
> 
> Also! There's art!  
> [Elsaara's awesome human Ezor!](https://elsaara.tumblr.com/post/163845922313/its-girlskylark-version-of-the-love-of-my-life)  
> [My lil Acxa/Ezor illustration](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/post/163895527055/a-bit-of-acxa-and-ezor-for-the-fic-i-wrote-for)


	3. marking ritual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because my friend [Mac](http://archiveofourown.org/users/macShitFuck/pseuds/macShitFuck) yelled at me to finish this.

Acxa left the apartment with every intent of grabbing coffees in preparation for everything that would happen that day. It was eight in the morning, and she already got a text from an unknown number stating, “ _I’ve got the well set up. Meet us at the Altea well at noon exactly_.” She saved the contact as Lotor before dropping the front wheels of her longboard down, and coasting it forward with her foot. She pocketed her phone and took off, swinging down the sidewalk and pushing herself forward across the concrete and onto the bike lane alongside the cars.

She searched until she spotted a sign that looked a whole lot like a coffee shop. They had a chalkboard sign outside of their store, butted up against those weirdly oversized flower displays bursting with vine plants and a tall, blossoming floral arrangement. She kicked up the tail end of her board and caught the wheels, hoisting it under her arm in one fluid movement on her way to the door. The decal on the window said _Kova Koffee_ above where Acxa pushed her hand against the door, and let herself in.

Acxa more or less lived off of espresso, and didn’t hesitate to add two extra shots to her drink before hesitating at the image of Ezor asleep at the apartment. The cashier asked if she needed anything else, and so she said, “And… a medium chai or something. That’s pretty safe, right? If you don’t know what the person likes?”

“I’d say so.”

“Then that’ll be it.” She handed over the money, and waited off to the side for the barista to pull up the two drinks. She carried them out with one trailing beside her at shoulder-height, and was thrilled by the fact that hardly anyone seemed to bat an eye at her magick. It seemed like a common occurrence, and at least she had her gloves on to prevent another self-conscious shit show like her first day here.

She stabilized her drinks beside her, and let her longboard fall to the concrete. She kicked off and tipped her hips forward, dipping back onto the road, and cruising off in the direction of the apartment.

Acxa never _had_ slumber parties, or sleepovers, or whatever you wanted to call them. It wasn’t exactly something her grade school experience consisted of, and the idea that her first ever sleepover happened to be the day she arrived at college was… anticlimactic. Of course, she didn’t expect to play _Truth or Dare_ , or anything ridiculous like that, but it was surprisingly nice. It wasn’t stressful, or bizarre, or anything to call your mother about, but it gave her a sense of independence she didn’t quite have before.

Back in Kuron, she was mostly alone, spending time on her own. And while that was externally the perfect definition of sole dependence… sometimes independence required an element of _dependence_. Without dependence, there couldn’t be _in_ dependence, and she hoped Ezor would be the root of the word for her.

She waited in the elevator with a girl and her boyfriend. She stared at her own reflection, morphed in the metal across from her, to distract from the gross, swelling feeling in her chest that felt a lot like a balloon filled with tar. She couldn’t start PDA, but she couldn’t deny the fact that she viewed Ezor as the sort of girl to instigate it. _Stop acting like you’re dating her_ , she scolded herself as the door opened a floor too early, and she watched the couple exit. _You’re being unrealistic. Since when did you throw around your affections like this? That’s right,_ never.

She dropped her board to the ground and rode it down the flat, carpeted corridor. Just by coasting, she slowed and came to a full stop outside of her apartment door. She bent down and picked her board up at the same time her key turned in the lock and she was able to nudge it open with her foot. The lights were off, all except for the window facing the morning light in the living room. The apartment was washed over in it—that gentle morning yellow that felt like the warm, fuzzy feeling Acxa never felt in her chest until she noticed that Ezor was sitting at the counter setting her phone down.

“Hey, I got you a chai,” she said, letting it drift over and slide across the counter surface. It was sweating, and left a streak of water in its path. “If you don’t like it don’t feel like you have to finish it.”

“Thanks. That’s sweet of you,” Ezor said, glancing down at it and then back up at Acxa. She paused in the kitchen to note the way Ezor’s brow creased before she looked away again, pursing her lips. “I, um, I actually need to tell you something.”

Acxa didn’t say anything as she went over to the living room and nudged her longboard up against the wall. When she turned back, Ezor was scratching at her frizzy mess of hair that was condensed in a ponytail.

“You… know how some magick is linked to emotion? Like, we can’t control it unless we control our emotions?” she asked Acxa, who nodded, humming her agreement. She didn’t have much of that because she was always able to control her magick—though, she’d be lying if she said her telekinesis didn’t go haywire once in a while during a mental breakdown of sorts.

“It happens. There’s not much we can do about it. Does that… happen to you often?” she asked, leaning up against the counter now as Ezor fiddled with the edges of the cup’s cap.

“Sort of. I’m hoping to take a few extracurricular classes on it to stop it from happening. But I’m _scared_ that I used it last night, and _manipulated_ you simply because I have the magick to do so. And I don’t want to do that because we have to live together, and I’d really like to continue living with you,” she explained.

Acxa’s mind went to the worst possible scenario—that she couldn’t remember _something_ that happened last night that really should have been at the forefront of her mind.

“You didn’t— _take advantage_ of me, did you? I feel like I’d remember that—”

“No! No, I would _never_ , Acxa,” she insisted, and Acxa released a breath of relief. “It’s just that I can just tell what people want when it’s on their mind. It’s not quite mind reading, but it’s a variation of it. And I really do like you, Acxa, but I just—I feel like I used your vulnerability to get you to stay the night with me in my room. I shouldn't have done that. So in a way, I _did_ take advantage of you because I’m not used to living on my own.

“And I don’t know what kind of impression I gave you, but… it’s barely been a day and I already miss my dad and Thayserix and—I just don’t like to be on my own. I should have been upfront with you.”

Acxa was trying to process everything that came after “ _I really do like you,_ ” but she felt as though she was trying to erase her thoughts to go to sleep, only to have the same event pop up over and over again in her mind, refusing to let her rest for one goddamn second. It wasn’t until Ezor started giggling that she actually had the audacity to blush and stammer,

“Sorry—Oh my God, I’ve never—It’s not every day I get my mind read,” she confessed, wincing at the sound of her voice. _Not so stoic now, huh?_

“I’ve read worse minds than yours,” Ezor said, biting her lip as she smiled. “Hopefully I can get a handle on it this semester. If not… I don’t want you to think I’m intentionally prying, or constantly trying to use your intentions against you.”

Acxa covered her face with her hands, her groan turning into a laugh as Ezor giggled. “I’m so sorry—I don’t even know what I’m apologizing for, or what you’ve _actually_ picked up from me,” she confessed.

“It’s fine. Everyone has crushes,” she said, and Acxa pushed her head into her arms, folded over on the counter. “It’s flattering. And this covers a lot of the awkward, playing-games part of most crushes.”

Acxa pushed her beet-red face up out of the nook of her arms, peering up at where Ezor reached over and patted her on the head. “But… I can see you like to take things slow, though. So I can work with that,” she said, grinning as Acxa covered her face and moaned, “ _Ugh!_ Why did I have to get a _mindreader_ as a flatmate!”

Ezor threw her head back, laughing her heart out as she exclaimed, “You love it! Don’t lie!”

She smiled against all sense and control, and figured, _yeah,_ she did love it.

  


  


They found themselves in the Historical Markings and Rituals classroom. Narti had her arm on Ezor’s as Lotor unlocked the back closet and explained, “They keep traditional robes in here if you’d like to take a look.”

Acxa was distracted by the sheer amount of symbols spread across the walls. She recognized many of them, as some people might recognize letters in a book. But now, she was simply reading them for their hidden meanings and messages, and wondered which ones fit onto the floor around her favorite iconic sorcerers in history. She studied dozens of multi-elemental sorcerers, and went so far as to research what symbols must have been used on their rituals. Nowadays, photographs were always taken of peoples markings, like mug shots or fingerprints, so whatever showed up on her skin would likely be recorded forever. They never thought to record them down back in the day, and so historians salvaged markings from paintings made of The Greats.

She stood before a portrait of one of her favorite sorcerers. She read dozens upon dozens of books following his legacy, and everything that could be recovered from his time in Arus. Kogane was a book fanatic, and despite how private he was about his life, he seemed to screw himself over based on how much he wrote of himself. In all honesty, Acxa came to Daibazaal not just because of their excellent programs, but also the fact that they still had one of Kogane’s notated books on omniscience.

“Acxa, this way,” Lotor called out from inside the other room. She pried her eyes away from Kogane’s purple gaze and headed towards them.

The lighting overhead was yellow, and couldn’t reach far enough back to illuminate the clothes there. Many of them were encased in a protection filter that felt like cotton balls when Acxa reached through to touch the fabric. Ezor zapped a spark between her fingers that lifted into a slim, snake of light that circled over her head like a blue halo. It followed her into the back where they squinted at robes that looked both entirely different and the same all at once. From the front they heard Lotor call out, “There’s tags on them that tell you when they were used last. We’ll put your name on it when it’s done.”

“Sounds a whole lot like those old library cards,” Ezor snorted under her breath, and earned a nudge from Acxa’s elbow. “What? Just sayin’.”

“I’m sure these are far more expensive than any library book you check out,” Narti sounded from Acxa’s other side. She had her hand on the clothing rack, avoiding the fabric protectors at all costs. “And—try not to touch much. There’s a reason these all have spells on them.”

“The last thing I want is for whatever robe I’m wearing to dissolve during the week,” Acxa confessed, and scowled as Ezor cackled from behind her.

“That would be best-case scenario,” Ezor giggled, and instantly yelped, jumping away from something that hit her from behind.

“No teasing,” Narti warned, and as Acxa smirked, walking away, she watched Ezor frantically look to Narti, and behind her, searching for the thing that hit her.

They uncovered a simple black robe detailed with simple shapes cut out of the hem like makeshift lace that faded as it climbed upwards. The sleeves were loose, and would suffice for the purpose of concealing the paint on her arms. She helped with the process of covering her arms in pure white paint that dried and practically turned her arms to stone with how stiff they became. Afterwards, she got her first glimpse of the Altea source well, and marveled at the stain glass windows overhead, and how they speckled dots of light across the ground where Lotor tucked his white hair behind his ear and finished off the symbols on the floor.

He glanced up at her as she entered the room with Narti following behind. Ezor was standing off to the side by the stone benches, arms crossed over her chest as she looked away from Lotor’s work to see Acxa in the ritual robe.

She looked dwarfed in the baggy material, with her shoulders tensed around her neck, and her lips pursed in thought. She studied the paint on the stone surrounding the source well, which was now covered with its flattened wood cap. The diameter of it was about the length of a full-grown woman, and so she fit perfectly across it as Lotor helped lay her down on it. She stared up at the dome of stain glass windows before turning her attention to where Lotor tucked a strand of hair behind his pointed ear and said, “You ready?”

She nodded quickly, clearing her throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”

Lotor pushed himself up, and Acxa tipped her head back to watch him retreat from the inner circle. As he walked over the paint, bits of embers glowed from around his feet, and caught on the symbols. It fractured out in cracks of glowing orange and yellow, fanning out until Lotor swept his hands back, and brought them forward, coating all of the paint in fresh flames.

Something seized hold of her limbs, punching the air from her lungs and wrenching it up. The weight of her body left her as her eyelids closed to the sensation, and her breathing evened out with the rush of being shoved from this reality to another. For the week, she would exist in the dark plane of existence behind her eyelids, remembering and forgetting every vision that passed in front of her as Lotor maintained the paint on her skin, and the fires around them.

And all the while, Ezor and Narti would join them when they could. Narti would bring Lotor’s work to him through the shadows within the source well atrium, and he’d sit and stand, pace the bricks, or lay flat on his back with his books in front of him. His attention was constantly distracted by Acxa’s body floating in the middle of the room at chest-height. It wasn’t often that he was required to assist in a marking ritual—normally those were done locally, and with sorcerers who were close to the subject in the ritual. It was both an anxious and exciting task, and he knew Acxa as well as he could in just a few days time.

When evening came on the fourth day, he set his books down and picked up the pale of paint. As he walked through to the middle of the circle, the fires rose up around him, and evened out.

Footsteps echoed into the atrium, and he glanced behind him to where Ezor’s familiar pink hair wandered in through the archway. “I brought you food!” she declared, twisting around and holding up a takeout bag for him to see.

“Narti set you on that, didn’t she?” he laughed. “I love quesadillas.”

“Who doesn’t?” she said. “I got some for myself. I figured you could use the company.”

“I just have to fix Acxa’s paint and then we can eat,” he said, and turned back as Ezor meandered over to where all of his things were stationed around piles of books Narti sent him. She laughed a little, ducking down to pick up a slip of paper that was written on with Narti’s magic pen. Ezor spent the last two days hanging around Narti and Lotor’s apartment to keep Narti company, and so she recognized the letter Narti was writing on the side of listening to Ezor read a book.

Ezor was just about to comment on it before glancing over at where Lotor set down the pant pale outside of the circle and went back in, brows tensed together. “What is it?” she asked, setting the letter down along with the togo bag.

“I—It’s probably nothing. She just seems to be _rising_ ,” he explained. Ezor tipped her head to the side, wandering over so that she was level with Acxa and Lotor. Her flatmate was nearing the top of Lotor’s shoulders. “She shouldn’t be _rising_.”

“What does it mean if she is?” she asked.

“I don’t know. There’s no reason for her to go above one-and-a-half meters,” he said. “And that just has to do with the levels of your energy focal points. During a marking ritual, you settle at the height of your central focal point.”

“What if she rises above all of her focal points?” Ezor asked, and she realized that she did _not_ want to know, especially after seeing the way Lotor paled at the idea of it. “O-Okay, we just—we could ask Narti if she has any idea? What if we just, like, got a plank of wood and _held it_ over Acxa so that she can’t rise any further!”

“We are _not_ buying a plank of _wood_ ,” Lotor said, and Ezor liked to think that he would have laughed had they not been so hysterical. “I might have to contact one of the professors about this.”

He hurried back out of the circle, and Ezor looked helplessly between him and her flatmate, as if losing sight of either of them would cause Acxa to float straight through the ceiling. Eventually, though, she hurried after Lotor as he picked up his phone and dialed up one of his professors. In the midst of the call, Lotor turned around and cursed into the phone. “Actually, do you think you could make it in five minutes?”

Ezor yelped, rushing towards Acxa before realizing that she couldn’t pass through the flames without Lotor’s help. Her friend’s body was tilting forward, slowly, inch-by-inch into an upright position. The flames buffeted towards the center as Lotor rushed in, trying desperately to hold Acxa down without touching her. He tugged at the back of her robe, but she was immovable.

“ _Shit_ ,” he hissed, hands in his hair. The flames were taking on the movement of waves, pulsing around his legs as he stepped back.

“Just _grab her—_!”

“I can’t! It disrupts the process!” he said. “We’d be mixing our sources together—”

Acxa was nearly vertical now. Ezor couldn’t see anything good happening from that, and they were helpless without Lotor’s professor’s help. “For fuck’s sake,” she huffed, and bypassed Lotor through the least-fiery bit of the circle.

“ _No!_ You can’t,” Lotor hissed, grabbing her by the arm and hauling her back. She yelped, staggering out of the circle. The second Lotor left the circle, the flames licked higher, blocking every chance at getting to Acxa.

It dried and cracked the paint on her skin. Four days in, and Ezor and Lotor could see the markings underneath. The white paint broke through to flat white skin, paler than Acxa’s usual skin tone. It covered her fingers and hands and arms, reaching up and cracking away around her bicep like pure white gloves. All they could do was watch as Acxa straightened out from her tilted position, eyes and mouth closed, hair rustling with the pulsing fire down below.

The temperature in the atrium doubled into a sweltering, hellish heat. It took until now for Ezor to realize that the light filtering in through the stained glass windows was gone, and replaced with a heavy blue from the clouds. The fire made it sound like wind was howling through the domed roof.

The second they heard footsteps hurrying in, Lotor cried, “Oh thank the gods—Professor Marvok.”

Marvok was a short fellow with a little too much beard to see the way his jaw dropped at the sight he encountered in the atrium. He opened his mouth to shout something, but it was drowned out by a flash of light that was immediately accompanied by a clash of thunder.

Glass shattered over their heads. Ezor screamed, throwing her arms up just as Marvok threw up a barrier to deflect the stained glass windows from hitting them. Bits of glass sprinkled across the brick as the blinding light faded. The lightning struck through the middle of the room, throwing Acxa off of her axis, and landing among the fading fire that turned to embers, and then to soot on the floor.

“Acxa!” Ezor shouted, running forward through the barrier Marvok held up.

He let it dissipate, saying, “I’ve never—”

“I don’t know what happened,” Lotor insisted. “She was doing fine just this morning.”

“How long’s it been?” Marvok asked as they hurried after Ezor.

“Not even five days.”

Lotor helped pull Acxa off the floor. Her eyes were opening as Marvok said, “Her untapped source must be too extreme—that’s the only explanation I can offer for this. I’ve heard of larger sources causing sorcerers to rise above the average levitation height, but…”

“That can’t be all it is,” Ezor said, voice shaking as her shoes crushed bits of glass underneath them. “What about the vertical axis?”

Marvok offered a shrug as they looked up at the cloudy sky. The lightning seemed to burst the floodgates, and soon rain was trickling in, spotting the floor and the soot with fresh water.

“Ezor, can you grab my things for me?” Lotor asked as he began carrying Acxa out into the atrium hallway where they wouldn’t be harmed by fallen glass. Ezor hurriedly picked up the togo box and the books as rain began soaking her clothes. Marvok helped her, and the two of them followed after Lotor to where he had Acxa laying on a bench, drowsy and confused.

“What happened?” Acxa asked, voice groggy from sleep. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, and looked down.

Ezor stopped as they all seemed to notice where the lightning struck. Acxa’s robes were burnt and torn to shreds where her arm was. The perfectly solid white markings were obstructed now by her skin color where the lightning hit. It fractured out like glass from her lower forearm. Lotor helped her sit up as she prodded at the markings, trying to push away paint that wasn’t even there. Ezor couldn’t fathom the disappointment on Acxa’s face, realizing that she had no markings that she could decipher every day, and give new meaning to them with every glance.

“Solid markings,” Marvok commented. “Can’t say that’s a common sight.”

“It means I’m nothing,” Acxa whispered. “I don’t have an element.”

“No—! No, that’s not true,” Ezor insisted, but she hadn’t been the one to study marking rituals for years like Acxa had. “How could she not have an element, but have a massive source? That doesn’t make sense!”

“It could be…” Lotor started, and cleared his throat when his professor looked at him. “It could be that she wasn’t designated an element? She could dabble in all of them this way.”

“Even Great Sorcerers like Kogane had markings,” Marvok huffed, arms crossed. “But I see your point. We’ll just have to see with time. And as for the atrium…”

“What about it?” Acxa asked, and no one could meet her sorrowful eyes truthfully. She put her pure white hands over her face and groaned into them.

  


  


By the time they got back to the apartment complex, Acxa was asleep again in the back seat. Ezor glanced over the shoulder of the passenger seat and said to Lotor, “I bet your theory’s right.”

“For Acxa’s sake, I hope it is,” he sighed. “This is going to be all over the campus news by tomorrow.”

He parked the car in the underground structure, and Ezor reached back and prodded Acxa awake by shaking her knee. “We’re home! Time to wake up!”

Acxa moaned miserably and forced herself up. Her eyes looked smaller in her tired state, and she blinked slowly as she pushed herself out of the door. Ezor met her there and helped hold her up by slinging one of Acxa’s arms around her shoulders. “So… Miss Mighty Source? What do you want to do for the rest of the day?”

“Sleep…”

“How about a movie? Or two?” Ezor insisted, and Acxa looked down, laughing quietly as they followed after Lotor. The car locked behind them, and as the elevator doors shut, Acxa tipped her head against Ezor’s and closed her eyes until their floor came up.

As they started down the hallway, Acxa cleared her throat and said, “Thanks for… helping me with the ritual. Even if things went horribly wrong.”

“My pleasure,” Lotor laughed, approaching his door. “I did my best.”

“You did! I’m just sorry I fucked it up,” Acxa confessed.

“You didn’t fuck anything up,” Lotor told her as she ducked her head. “Honestly, Acxa—this isn’t your fault.”

Acxa nodded, unable to trust her voice in this. Ezor pulled out a togo box from the bag and handed it to Lotor. He beamed at it, and thanked her for buying dinner. Ezor led them away from Lotor’s apartment, saying a cheery farewell to their neighbor before they approached their door. She dropped her arm from around Acxa and shuffled around for her keys.

The first thing Acxa did was change out of the robe. They’d have to return it later, and pretend as though nothing happened with the lightning strike—if that was even _possible_. She could already see the damage costs racking up.

As she shimmied into pajama pants and a tank top, she heard the television start up outside of her room. When she peered out again, Ezor was meandering from the kitchen to the living room with two large glasses of wine. Acxa disappeared back into her room and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and scowled at the white gloves stretching up her arms. She twisted her arm to see the fractured bit of her skin peeking out from the markings. She sought out a sweatshirt to cover them up.

When she joined Ezor on the couch for a night in with movies and wine, she soaked in the comfort to avoid every terrible thing that came as consequence to her ritual. She could deal with that all another time, so for now…

At the start of the movie, Ezor tugged at Acxa’s hand and threaded their fingers together so Acxa’s markings faced them. “They’re beautiful,” Ezor said firmly, and when Acxa groaned, tipping her head back against the cushions, she added, “I don’t want you to keep thinking they aren’t just because they’re different. Or not what you expected.”

Acxa opened her eyes with a sigh, frowning at her flatmate, her potential-friend and possible-partner-in-crime. All of that would come later, and so she relished the awkward in-between phase just as much as she would the rest of the year she spent living with Ezor.

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> *Edit: I've changed Auxia's name to Acxa based on the official Voltron website name (even though Netflix subtitles say Auxia) SO JUST SO YOU ARE AWARE. I'll keep Auxia in the tags tho.
> 
> Fight me on [Tumblr](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/) :D


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